" Laurence Sterne was one of those few authors who have anticipated the labours of the biographer, 'and left to the world what they desired should be known of their family and their life.
" Roger Sterne (says this narrative,) grandson to Archbishop Sterne, lieutenant in Handaside's regiment, was married to Agnes Hebert, widow of a captain of a good family. Her family name was (I believe) Nuttle; though, upon recollection, that was the name of her father-in-law, who was a noted sutler in Flanders, in Queen Anne's wars, where my father married his wife's daughter (N. B. he was in debt to him) which was in September 25, 1711, old style. This Nuttle had a son by my grandmother—a fine person of a man, but a graceless whelp !—What became of him, I know not. The family (if any left) live now at Clonmel, in the south, of Ireland; at which town I was born, November 24, 1713, a few days after my mother arrived from Dunkirk...
The text above is from Sir Walter Scott's "Lives of the Novelists". Laurence Sterne's birth ushered in the disbanding of father Roger's regiment, causing the family to return briefly to Yorkshire. But, by 1715, the family returned to Ireland. The Sterne's had a connection to higher education through great-grandfather Richard Sterne, who been Master of Jesus College in Cambridge, where Laurence studied, beginning in 1733.
Sterne's life was richer in preaching and politics than in writing, though "The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy, Gentleman" has become a classic. Sterne died in 1768, after a long battle with consumption.
Showing posts with label Lives of the Novelists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lives of the Novelists. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Laurence Sterne
" Any man who has a name, or who has the power of pleasing," said Johnson, "will be very generally invited in London. The man Sterme, I am told, has had engagements for three months." Johnson's feelings of morality, and respect for the priesthood, led him to speak of Sterne with contempt; but when Goldsmith added, " And a very dull fellow," he replied with his emphatic, " Why, no, sir."
Walter Scott included this snippet of conversation between Samuel Johnson and Oliver Goldsmith to portray the Anglican clergyman and novelist Laurence Sterne as his contemporaries saw him. The text is part of Scott's article on Laurence Sterne in his "The Lives of the Novelists". The dialogue above captures something of the moral discomfort people felt at the time, about the novel "The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy, Gentleman"; especially as this work came from the pen of a clergyman. Scott comments in his lives that:
"...Tristram Shandy is no narrative, but a collection of scenes, dialogues, and portraits, humorous or affecting, intermixed with much wit, and with much learning, original or borrowed. It resembles the irregularities of a Gothic room, built by some fanciful collector, to contain the miscellaneous remnants of antiquity which his pains have accumulated, and bearing as little proportion in its parts, as there is connexion between the pieces of rusty armor with which it is decorated..."
Tristam Shandy was much better appreciated after Sterne's death, up to the current time. As was the author, Laurence Sterne, who died on March 18, 1768.
Walter Scott included this snippet of conversation between Samuel Johnson and Oliver Goldsmith to portray the Anglican clergyman and novelist Laurence Sterne as his contemporaries saw him. The text is part of Scott's article on Laurence Sterne in his "The Lives of the Novelists". The dialogue above captures something of the moral discomfort people felt at the time, about the novel "The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy, Gentleman"; especially as this work came from the pen of a clergyman. Scott comments in his lives that:
"...Tristram Shandy is no narrative, but a collection of scenes, dialogues, and portraits, humorous or affecting, intermixed with much wit, and with much learning, original or borrowed. It resembles the irregularities of a Gothic room, built by some fanciful collector, to contain the miscellaneous remnants of antiquity which his pains have accumulated, and bearing as little proportion in its parts, as there is connexion between the pieces of rusty armor with which it is decorated..."
Tristam Shandy was much better appreciated after Sterne's death, up to the current time. As was the author, Laurence Sterne, who died on March 18, 1768.
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